Sort of a sub-point here, but I don't agree with the sentiment that ff7 is being milked. The game is, what, a decade old, and when it came out it was "NEW". By that I mean nothing like it had ever been seen on such a scale. It would seem more sensible to get the milking done then, before all the wannabe games were made by other companies.

Of course, I don't have any explanation for why they're releasing all this now, other than the rather naive hope that they were just waiting for the chance; i.e. for better graphics, better hardware, more man-power; to take a world they loved so much and expand on it. Idealistic, sure, but companies can't be moneygrubbing, littlepeoplecrushing, oldladypushing bastards 100% of the time. Right?

On the actual topic, nothing they have realeased since the merger has elicited a wonderous response from me. Not actually a vote for "they shouldnt done it!", but I think near everyone was expecting more.

I think if they were just waiting and hoping, the story would've been left open deliberately for all the milking. I don't mind if they milk it as long as it produces some great stuff; so far though, DoC doesn't sound too great, we know very little about Crisis Core, and Advent Children's biggest plus is that it was really really flashy. And Before Crisis is a cellphone game, so I'm convinced I'll never play it unless it gets a PSP or DS port.

I still think they're a good company, but honestly they just don't seem to be making as much great stuff as before. There's fewer standout unique IPs, and some of their follow-ups have been subpar (namely M:SL). Still, they look to be making a strong comeback, so I may change my opinion in a year or two.

Edit: Actually, I want to throw in that the merger did in fact have a negative effect - but not in the development area. Rather, the translation department: We have two big companies merged together, but not two merged US subsideries; I'm not sure how much more would've been translated though, and I heard they only had something like 10 employees, but I imagine we'd have gotten DQV had at least some of the management been kept around.

Of course, I don't have any explanation for why they're releasing all this now, other than the rather naive hope that they were just waiting for the chance; i.e. for better graphics, better hardware, more man-power; to take a world they loved so much and expand on it. Idealistic, sure, but companies can't be moneygrubbing, littlepeoplecrushing, oldladypushing bastards 100% of the time. Right?

Look at it from this perspective: Apart from Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, Final Fantasy VII ended up being the first target to which the polymorphic content strategy was applied to. Given that Final Fantasy VII is their best-selling title, they went with that one. As for the motivations, Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshinori Kitase basically said they wanted to try a few new things: One was how Final Fantasy VII would like using state-of-the-art CG visuals, while Kitase apparently always wanted to create an action oriented game, for instance a shooter. So he took that entire "gun action" concept and tried to fuse it with Final Fantasy-esque presentation and story telling.

But what about the Red XIII spinoff about the future where Midgar is a jungle?

I REALLY want that!

That would be the best compilation title ever.

Anyhow, I don't have a lot to comment on the Square-Enix merger. It seems to be the thing to do for companies these days, or for struggling companies. I'm not too picky on the RPGs I play, as long as they're moderately fun.